Chopin's Visions

These days, ‘visionary’ is an overused word. In a world characterised by an ever-decreasing vocabulary, it is a platitude universally adopted to describe any artistic work of merit. From musicians to artists, to writers and film-makers, anybody deemed to make the grade is thought to be ‘visionary’. Along with ‘genius’, another grossly overused word, ‘visionary’ is a term that has seen its currency greatly devalued of late; it has been reduced to a tired cliché, a banal inanity with little meaning.

However, when taken in the pure and unadulterated sense of the word, there have been some groundbreaking artists who merit the description. Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Beethoven, Mozart can all be accurately described as visionary: they are artists and musicians who have produced far-sighted, innovative pieces of work, which have immeasurably impacted the way we perceive music, art and the world in general.

Frederick Chopin, despite being one of the aforementioned pioneering musicians, has been called ‘visionary’ for entirely different reasons. During his short life, the Polish composer, famous for his piano sonatas,

became notorious for habitually lapsing in and out of consciousness while composing or playing a piece of music. During these episodes, he experienced vivid visual hallucinations, many of them very frightening. In her memoirs, Chopin's lover, George Sand, told how the hallucinations suffered by the composer were “full of terror and ghosts for him”. In fact, Chopin himself described the nature of his visions in numerous letters to family and friends. In one such letter to George Sand’s daughter, Chopin describes how, when performing a piano sonata in London, he was obliged to abruptly leave the room because he could clearly see creatures crawling out of the piano while he played.

It was widely believed at the time that these episodes were a by-product of the composer’s immense musical ability. This was a conviction perpetuated by Sand, who wrote that the visions were “manifestations of a genius full of sentiment and expression.” During the early 19th century, very little was known about what we now refer to as neuroscience, so it is hardly surprising such a conclusion was reached, no matter how ridiculous it may seem to the modern observer.

So, with the benefit of hindsight and the advance of medical science, can we discover the cause of Chopin’s terrifying hallucinations? A recent study by a team of Spanish doctors has come up with a convincing theory – it seems very likely that the composer suffered from a form of epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy to be exact. The reasons for this diagnosis are numerous: the type of hallucinations described by Chopin are common with this form of epilepsy; the composer suffered bouts of severe melancholy, which is also a symptom of this condition; and perhaps most significantly, Chopin did not hear voices, which rules out schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and most other forms of psychosis.

Unfortunately, Chopin’s medical problems were not confined to hallucinations – his short life was marked by ill-health. From an early age, he suffered from a variety of respiratory problems which were to plague him all his life. He died in 1849, at the age of 39, from some form of pulmonary disease, or possibly from cystic fibrosis. It was, nevertheless, his infamous visions which still ignite the interest of medical experts today. We may have discovered the reasons behind his legendary hallucinations, but we will never know if they in any way impacted the nature of, or the development of, his astounding musical ability.

Watercolour as an Art Form

Tate Britain is about to embark on a major new exhibition of watercolours, with an express aim to push an often overlooked creative medium to the forefront of artistic debate. Judging by the lively discussion which has already erupted in the art world, it would appear that Tate is well on the way to succeeding in this ambition.

The debate centres on the merits of watercolours as an art form, or indeed their lack thereof. It is fair to say that, up to now at least, conventional thinking has often dismissed watercolour as the poor anaemic cousin of oil painting. This is mainly due to the pale, translucent quality of watercolours which are sometimes regarded as insipid, bland, even feeble when compared to the vibrancy of oils. Indeed, the dream-like, ephemeral nature of watercolours promotes an image of transient impermanence, while the opposite is true of the stronger, energetic oil paintings. In short, the general consensus seems to be that while oils pack a punch, watercolours whimper softly in the background.

The Tate exhibition challenges this status quo. Featuring a wide array of works which date from the 13th century to the present day, including early maps by a Benedictine monk to miniature portraits of Henry VIII, the show highlights how watercolours have played an important part in witnessing and recording our long and varied history. This broad collection of subjects also deftly contradicts the notion that watercolour is merely a medium favoured by novice painters who like to dabble in nature scenes. The perception that watercolours depict a limp representation of real life is also challenged. Eric Taylor’s 1945 painting, Human Wreckage at Belsen, proves that watercolour can portray disturbing and harrowing scenes every bit as effectively as oils.

So, will watercolour shake off the shackles of a long-standing dubious reputation to emerge as a respected medium in its own right? Why not go along to the exhibition and decide for yourself?

Linbury Galleries, Tate Britain
16 February – 21 August 2011
Entry Fee £12.50 (Concessions £10.50)
Free to Tate Members and Tate Patrons
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/

Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop' - A Review

By the time Evelyn Waugh published Scoop in 1938, he had already gained quite a reputation as a biting social satirist. His previous novels, Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall, had mercilessly lampooned various aspects of British society in the 1920s. With Scoop, Waugh had another target in his sights – the journalism industry, or more precisely, the tabloid newspapers which habitually engaged in sensationalist reporting.

The novel revolves around William Boot, a bumbling, unassuming nature writer who, through a case of mistaken identity, finds himself plucked from the obscurity of his country home and shipped off to the fictional African country of Ishmaelia by the editor of The Daily Beast. As the Beast’s man in Ishmaelia, Boot is charged with the task of reporting on the impending civil war, which is expected to erupt at any moment. A raucous comedy of errors ensues, which ultimately sees Boot, despite his breathtaking incompetence, eventually land the scoop of the decade.

Loosely based on Waugh’s own experiences as a special correspondent reporting on Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, the novel deftly paints a vivid portrait of Fleet Street as an ineffectual, bloated, egotistical monster, more concerned with newspaper sales than reporting the truth. (Sound familiar?) It becomes apparent that journalism, with its pervasive expenses-claiming culture, was the poster-boy of excess long before today’s bankers and politicians took over this dubious mantle.

The novel’s cast of characters is a thinly disguised who’s who of Britain’s newspaper industry during the interwar years. The Daily Beast and its rival The Daily Brute are parodies of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. Lord Copper and Lord Zinc are both recognizable as the real-life newspaper magnates, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Northcliffe (owners of the Express and Mail respectively). The obsequious and inept foreign editor, Mr Salter, can, one imagines, be taken to symbolise any number of Fleet Street editors of the time. Even Mussolini gets a mention, in the guise of Dr Benito, the would-be dictator of Ishmaelia.

A quick glance at today’s tabloid headlines is enough to convince the reader that not much has changed in the intervening years since Waugh wrote his illuminating, if cynical, parody of tabloid reporting. As such, it is essential reading for anybody interested in a career in journalism. In fact, why not avoid extortionate university fees altogether; invest in Scoop instead– it’s the only textbook an aspiring journalist will need!

Jamie Oliver - the Patron Saint of Publishing

Pause for a moment to consider what the name Jamie Oliver means to you. Undoubtedly, you could come up with a variety of words to describe him - chef, media personality, campaigner, philanthropist. All these indisputably and accurately illustrate the trajectory of Jamie Oliver’s career since he first burst onto our TV screens as The Naked Chef in 1998. But the latest string which has been added to his bow, that of record-breaking author, has caught many by surprise, not least, one assumes, Mr Oliver himself.

The figures for total annual book sales for 2010 have recently been released - and the numbers tell quite a story. Jamie’s latest cookbook, 30 Minute Meals, sold a phenomenal 1.2 million copies last year, making it the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time. This achievement is even more remarkable when one considers the fact that the book was released quite late in the year, at the end of September.

These astonishing sales figures make Jamie Oliver one of the most successful British authors ever, second only to JK Rowling. It is unprecedented that a non-fiction book, and a cookbook at that, could post such huge sales. Not bad for a dyslexic boy from Essex who famously said, “reading bores me to death, I’ve honestly never read a book from cover to cover in my life.”

All this has been like manna from heaven to the publishing industry. At a time when pundits are predicting the demise of traditional publishing, Penguin (the publisher of 30 Minute Meals) has posted record profits. A recipe for success other companies will be keen to replicate.

No doubt there will be some purists out there who will take exception to the fact that a cookbook, of all things, has been lauded as the saviour of the UK’s publishing industry - and to some extent they have a point; a recipe can hardly be described as high literature, can it? However, in these straitened times, let’s just be thankful that people are buying books, no matter what genre they happen to be.

Lastly, let's spare a thought for Jamie's arch-rival, the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay, who may now be regretting his catty, if somewhat prohetic, remark: "Jamie Oliver inspires me with what he has done - with his publishing arm."

Yeats's Parting Shot

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Irish poet and playwright, William Butler Yeats. He died in 1939 in the small town of Roquebrune on the French Rivera, aged 73.

Prior to his death, Yeats left specific instructions regarding his burial. According to his wife Georgie, the poet, in his own inimitable style, said:

"If I die, bury me up there [at Roquebrune] and then in a year's time, when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo."

And this is exactly what happened. WB Yeats was buried quietly in France a few days after his death, and his body was eventually repatriated to Ireland and interred in his native and beloved Sligo. (This is in stark contrast to the fate of Yeats’s compatriot James Joyce, who languishes in a cemetery in Switzerland to this day – see previous post.)

Given the fact that death is a pervading theme in Yeats’s poetry, it is hardly surprising to learn that he had given a lot of thought to his own death. Aside from the burial instructions, he also left specific directions regarding his tombstone: “no marble, no conventional phrase”.

And so, it seems rather fitting that the epitaph engraved on his simple granite headstone in Sligo was taken from one of his more elegiac poems Under Ben Bulben:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

Ding Dong! The Book is Dead ... or is it?

The book, as we know it, is dead. As a dodo. Kaput. At least that’s what the countless doom-mongering naysayers who populate newspaper columns and the internet would have us believe. Citing the inexorable rise in popularity of e-readers like the Kindle and the iPad, pundits have been predicting the demise of the humble paperback with increasing fervour.

Why the clamber to relegate the book to the annals of history? The current fashion of bestowing on the book the status of relic seems to me somewhat short-sighted. In their haste to declare the book dead, an artefact of the innocent, halcyon days of the pre-digital era, the anti-book brigade has overlooked one key fact – the printed word has a proven track record when it comes to longevity. It has, in fact, been around since the invention of the first printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. Dear reader, can you envisage the Kindle still going strong in 570 years? I think not.

That is not to say that e-readers are not mounting a serious challenge to books in their traditional form. There is, however, no reason why the printed word and its digitised cousin cannot co-exist happily in this brave new electronic world. There will always be those who prefer one form over the other, and that is the very reason why books and e-readers will never become mutually exclusive. We do not live in a homogeneous society, so why should we settle for homogeneous choices?

This particular debate will, no doubt, continue to rumble on for years to come. Perhaps next time we are tempted to write off the book (excuse the pun!), we would do well to remember the words of the equally immutable Mark Twain:

“the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

On This Day ... Notable Anniversaries

19th January:
Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet, was born on this day in 1809.

Paul Cézanne, French post-impressionist painter, was born on this day in 1839.

The Second Coming of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is enjoying something of a revival of late. A spate of new television and movie adaptations has brought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ingenious literary creation to a whole new generation of audiences, proving yet again that the detective has enduring appeal. It is hardly surprising then that the Conan Doyle estate has decided to capitalise on the renewed appetite for all things Holmesian by authorising a new, full-length story to be penned by the author and screenwriter, Anthony Horowitz.

The commission marks the first time Holmes has been officially recalled to action since the death of Conan Doyle. The last we heard of the great detective, he was enjoying a quiet and secluded retirement in rural Sussex, immersing himself in the study of beekeeping, far away from the dastardly deeds of London’s criminal underworld. Apart from a brief return to the fray during World War I to engage in some covert espionage at the behest of the Prime Minister, we have heard nothing more of Sherlock Holmes – until now.

Fans will be relieved to hear that the new story will remain faithful to Conan Doyle’s vision. Unlike the recent BBC dramatisation, the imaginatively titled Sherlock, there will be no attempt to modernise the narrative or change the setting. Horowitz has promised "a first-rate mystery for a modern audience while remaining absolutely true to the spirit of the original”. The author's confirmation that his story will see a return to the setting of Victorian England has elicited a collective sigh of relief from innumerable Sherlock Holmes fans across the world.

The resurrection of Sherlock is controversial and certainly a gamble for the Conan Doyle estate. If this new addition to the annals is perceived to fall below the high standard set by Conan Doyle, it will prove extremely unpopular. This is not, however, the first time a literary hero has been revived long after the original author has shuffled off this mortal coil. James Bond famously survived the death of his creator Ian Fleming in 1969, thanks to a number of (largely successful) continuation novels written by authors as diverse as Sebastian Faulks, Charlie Higson, and Kingsley Amis – a formula the Conan Doyle estate no doubt hopes to emulate.

So, what do we know of this man who is entrusted with breathing new life into the iconic character? Horowitz is a prolific author, having published over 50 books, including the popular children’s detective stories The Power of Five and Alex Rider. He has also written extensively for the screen, adapting many of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories for television. Certainly his credentials are impressive, but one does not envy him his task; he will undoubtedly feel burdened by the heavy weight of expectation from Holmes's legion of fans. Walking in the hallowed footsteps of Sir Arthur would be a daunting prospect for any author, no matter how accomplished. Let's hope Horowitz manages to emerge from the shadow of Conan Doyle to produce a story worthy of the great detective.

Long live Sherlock Holmes!

UPDATE: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz was published in late 2011 - and gets a resounding 'thumbs up' from this particular reader.  Book review to follow shortly.

Picasso and Dali: The Best of "Frenemies"?

I've recently been musing on the fraught love/hate relationship between Pablo Picasso and his fellow countryman, Salvador Dali. It can be best summed up by the following quote, where Picasso succinctly offers his opinion of Dali's work:

"He paints the smell of shit better than anyone"

Meaow!

A Notable Anniversary

On this day (January 13th) 1941, James Joyce, the Irish novelist and poet, died in Zurich, Switzerland. He was three weeks shy of his 59th birthday.

In what can only be described as breathtaking short-sightedness, the Irish Government reportedly declined an offer by his wife Nora to have his body repatriated to his homeland. Consequently, he is buried in Fluntern Cemetery in Zurich.

Despite being an inveterate dipsomaniac, Joyce produced a considerable body of work in his lifetime, including A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegan's Wake and the collection of short stories Dubliners. Joyce's fondness of the odd drink did nothing to stem the flow of creativity nor did it adversely affect his work ethic - he once said that he spent 20,000 hours working on Ulysses, the stream of consciousness masterpiece for which he is best remembered.

Interestingly, Joyce and fellow modernist writer Virginia Woolf, the two writers most associated with stream of consciousness narrative, share more than a talent for experimental prose - they were also born and died in the same year (1882 and 1941 respectively). Unfortunately, Woolf, who read Ulysses while writing Mrs Dalloway, did not hold Joyce's offering in very high esteem. She wrote in her diary:

"I have read 200 pages [of Ulysses] so far - not a third; & have been amused, stimulated, charmed, interested by the first 2 or 3 chapters [...] & then puzzled, bored, irritated, & disillusioned as by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. And Tom, great Tom [TS Eliot], thinks this is on a par with War & Peace!"

A harsh critic, indeed!

Literary Vandalism

Mark Twain seems to be everywhere these days. The publication of his autobiography last year to mark the 100th anniversary of his death garnered many headlines. Recently, however, the great American author has been making news for entirely different reasons. Or rather, one of his most famous creations has.

A few days ago, it was announced that a small US-based publishing house called NewSouth Books is preparing to bring out an edition of Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with some notable changes. Any reference to the word “nigger” is to be replaced by “slave”, and (inexplicably) “injun” is to be erased in favour of “Indian”.

The man who originally advocated these changes is Alan Gribben, an English professor at the University of Alabama and a noted Twain scholar. That any person associated with teaching English literature would call for changes such as these is quite unbelievable, and by a man purporting to be a Twain scholar is unconscionable.

Gribben’s rationale for expurgating Huck Finn is his belief that today’s readers have become uncomfortable reading words with such negative connotations. He argues that teachers increasingly find it difficult to explain the context of such words to their students, and teenagers are confused when confronted with them. He believes the language of Huck Finn is the reason why the novel has dropped off curriculum lists all over America.

In today’s society, there is no question that the word “nigger” is objectionable and highly offensive. The word, with all it’s associations with slavery, racism and segregation, has become a toxic throwback to America’s ugly past. But is this a reason to expunge the word entirely from the classics of American literature? (Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has also come under heavy criticism for the use of the n-word). Surely not! If anything, these novels, in their original form, serve to highlight how far America has come since the awful years of slavery and segregation. These books provide a snapshot of American life in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and should be preserved - sanitising them only serves to dilute their message.

And as for Gribben's assertion that the non-inclusion of these novels on national curriculums is a direct result of the offensive language contained there-in, I would argue that it is better for the book to be read in it's true form by a few, than a censored version to be read by the masses.

Raphael's Renaissance Reunion

The Vatican has long since been associated with that most illustrious of artistic periods – the Renaissance. A number of popes of the High Renaissance period were enthusiastic supporters of the arts, acting as patrons to many artists of the day, including the holy trinity of Renaissance masters - Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. Indeed, it is fair to say, without the Vatican’s patronage during this explosively creative period, many of the masterpieces we so admire today would never have come into existence.

As such, it seems entirely appropriate that the Victoria and Albert museum, in association with the Vatican, is preparing an extraordinary exhibition to mark the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK later this year. The exhibition will celebrate one of the most ambitious artistic projects of the Renaissance era, and will bring together the four of the famous Sistine Chapel tapestries with the preparatory paintings from which they were made.

In 1515, Pope Leo X (Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici) commissioned a series of tapestries to cover the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel. Tapestries were highly prestigious symbols of wealth and power, and as such, were considered to be an appropriate complement to Michelangelo’s recently completed frescoes on the Chapel’s ceiling.

It was not, however, Michelangelo who was asked to design the tapestries; this honour fell to his much-detested arch-rival Raphael. Pope Leo X reportedly found the genial Raphael far more agreeable and easier to deal with than the petulant and notoriously difficult Michelangelo. Given the extent of the rivalry between the two artists, one can safely assume that Michelangelo was more than a little miffed by this rebuff. In fact, it has been said that he was unhappy about the prospect of Raphael’s work being displayed in such close proximity to his own. As it turned out, he may well have had good cause to worry; the tapestries (which, incidentally, cost five times as much as the frescoes) are considered by some to be more accomplished works. Arnold Nesselrath of the Vatican Museum has been quoted as saying the subtlety of these paintings and resulting tapestries “goes way beyond the subtlety of Michelangelo’s frescoes … (the workmanship) is like painting in threads”.

Despite the inevitable squeals of protest from Michelangelo, Raphael duly set to work. He produced a series of ten preparatory paintings, depicting scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. These paintings came to be known as “Raphael’s Cartoons”. The cartoons, which are three metres tall and up to five metres wide, are actually made up of many smaller pieces of paper joined together, and are painted in glue distemper. Upon completion, the cartoons were sent to the workshop of Pieter Van Aelst in Brussels (which was renowned for weaving excellence), to be made into tapestries. The weaving process was an epic undertaking, lasting three years. The finished products (which were mirror images of the cartoons, due to the fact that the weavers worked the tapestries from behind) finally returned to the Vatican in 1519 - just in time to be displayed as part of the Christmas celebrations.

The original set of tapestries was to meet a tragic fate. Seized during the Sack of Rome in 1527, some of the hangings were burned, primarily to liberate the precious metals from the gold and silver threads, while others were dispersed throughout Europe. The set of ten hangings was eventually re-assembled using tapestries from other identical weavings (several sets of the tapestries had been made over the years). This set was finally returned to the Sistine Chapel in 1983, and they have resided there ever since.

The cartoons had an entirely different, yet equally eventful, fate. It is unclear what became of them once they left Brussels. Convention dictated that such preparatory paintings should be returned to the painter, but this did not happen in this case. Seven of the cartoons eventually turned up over a hundred years later – discovered by Rubens in a drawer in Arras in the north of France! (The remaining three paintings have never been recovered.)

Spotted by an eagle-eyed collector, they were purchased in 1623 on behalf of Charles I (then Prince of Wales), for the relatively small sum of £300. The bargain-basement price reflected the fact that the paintings were considered to be working designs - the cartoons were actually cut into narrow strips to fit onto the weavers looms! (They were permanently rejoined in 1699). It is believed the Prince of Wales intended to use the designs to create copies of the tapestries for his own collection. Thankfully, after the Kings execution, the cartoons were among the few pieces of art from the Royal Collection not sold by Oliver Cromwell. They have been in the possession of the British Royal Family ever since, currently owned by Her Majesty, The Queen.

In 1865, the paintings (now on canvas backing) were given, on permanent loan, to the V&A by Queen Victoria. They are housed in a magnificent gallery built especially for the purpose (which is now rather innocuously known as Room 48A) – and they remain there to this day.

And now, the cartoons and four of the tapestries are to be reunited for the first time since they left the weaver’s workshop in Brussels - something even Raphael himself never witnessed. Perhaps fittingly, these two art forms are now coming together as equals. The paintings, never intended to be artworks in their own right, have become as treasured and valuable as the tapestries themselves. After five hundred years, one could argue it is a reunion long-overdue.

Incidentally, it is unlikely that Her Majesty will be making a reciprocal gesture to the Vatican; the cartoons are widely regarded as being entirely too fragile to ever be moved. It would seem Room 48A will remain the adoptive home of these awe-inspiring creations for some time to come.

The exhibition runs for six weeks from September 8th and entry is free, but sessions are timed. Pre-booking is advisable.